


You, Commander

by Revieloutionne



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers (Worldbuilding)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 16:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17307866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revieloutionne/pseuds/Revieloutionne
Summary: Billy never had more questions for folks from Angel Grove than after rangers appeared on his space station.





	You, Commander

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PockySquirrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockySquirrel/gifts).



Commander Cranston knew the Housing and Leisure-Focused Waypoint Station perhaps better than the back of his hand. (His hands, after all, were subject to the frequent zapping, scorching, and occasional minor laceration as the result of his lab work, even if it wasn't his focus these days.) He had memorized the blueprints and inspected the environments of the completed station more times than he could count.

This is how he knew Ensign Hunter's explanation for his lateness was a total fabrication. It made no sense for him to have diverted from the mall to the park when he found that his way to the school was blocked. None of those locations had direct access to each other.

Officially.

The Commander had retained the ability, from some larger construction projects in his youth, to judge large distances visually with enough accuracy that it only took a handful of surreptitious measurements to confirm his suspicion that the station had not been built from the public blueprints. Not only were the mall, park, and school connected by hidden tunnels, there was a whole web of secret passages radiating out from a hub from a point that according to the blueprints was the station's engine, but in reality sat just above it.

Suffice it to say, when Power Rangers had appeared on the station, few were less surprised than Billy.

***

The HaLFWay Station sat in geosynchronous orbit over Aquitar, the largest in a series of rest stops and refueling stations between Earth and Mironoi. By strange coincidence, the planet sat nearly exactly halfway between the two when a direct route with no detours through the Lost Galaxy was taken. As the Earth settlement on Mironoi grew and Mironoians took to visiting the larger universe, commercial travel between the planets eventually developed.

The Aquitians were happy to help, and while Billy initially had little interest in the project, once the station was there and a chance to live _dry_ again was within reach, he realized how badly he missed it. He'd long since stopped actively taking treatment for his aging problem, and if it turned out that the trace amounts of the youth-restoring water floating around in Aquitar's seas _were_ responsible for keeping his age advancing properly, the fix would be literally right next door.

And so Billy, going by William now as part of the overall refreshing of his life (and supposing that a more professional-sounding name suited his first foray into an actual  _profession_ ), found himself quickly rising through the ranks and settling comfortably in as a Commander well before the Cryptaliens targeted the station.

***

It didn't take long after that for him to realize the function of the secret features of the station, and so he helped cover for Ensign Hunter and his fellow rangers, reprogrammed the security systems to recognize the team's zords and not report on their comings and goings to anyone but himself, and nudged some security camera angles to allow the rangers to disappear when needed less visibly.

He was fairly certain his Captain was aware of all of this, but wasn't sure if the silence was trust alone or trust  _and_ plausible deniability, so he kept silent as well.

He occasionally wondered if he and his teams had been as unsubtle as these kids, or if he could see because he knew what he was looking for.

***

He'd been used to being the only human on Aquitar most of the time (the Karovians didn't have a permanent embassy, but were in frequent contact) and the only one with any workable knowledge of any kind of Earth culture, but something was different about being the only one on a station designed for Earth humans to stop at. A number of species allied with Aquitar were unable to spend much time, if any, in the aquatic environment on the planet itself, but were quite comfortable in the station above. Making contact with so many new cultures and forms of life was fascinating, but led to frequent faux pas. It was still slightly uncomfortable running into the little golden man he had said reminded him of an Alpha unit he once briefly knew, setting off an admittedly fascinating lecture on the difference between robots and mechanical life-forms, but one that the Commander had a hard time paying attention to when he was trying to apologize and clarify that he was speaking only in terms of personality as soon as possible.

It was an incredible relief when Earth humans started passing through. As expected, a small number of the migrating folks would decide that the HaLFWay Station was far enough from home and settle in, and while plenty of civilian work existed some did join the crew. The first time he made a Deep Space Nine joke on the bridge and somebody _understood_ , the Commander nearly cried.

***

He occasionally missed rangering but he'd long since accepted that he had his turn and it was exciting, but there was plenty more excitement elsewhere if that's what he wanted. (He'd learned fairly quickly from Cestria that excitement alone didn't provide what he needed, as fun as that could be.)

For a while, his research and tinkering provided the excitement  _and_ the substance he needed, but he hadn't realized how much that had faded until the HaLFWay Station launched.

***

There were a lot of things that could have been running through his mind as the engraved little orb and purple, dragon-headed staff floated in front of him. How conveniently all of this had lined up to get him here. How he should have seen the flags for this well in advance. How relieved he was to have a second chance at this. How certain he had been that getting the bomb in his hands away from the engines had saved everyone on the station but himself. How morphing immediately was the only path that would take him anywhere beyond the four seconds left on the timer.

His instincts handled the last part, as the only thought actively passing through his head at the time was “Purple?!”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the rangers in this fic are meant to be a PR-Universe equivalent of the Kyurangers. Initially I was going to have them be an undescribed original team, but then I realized that the prompt was specifically about Yost's tweet about _Commander_ William Cranston and how that might come about, and the staff I imagined floating in front of him could be Ryu _Commander's_ and it fit so well. Better than I even realized at first, because it wasn't until I was writing about his canon aging problem that I realized that footage of Xiao's "OH NO MY BACK" moments in-suit could be moments of "AW CRAP I'M OLD AGAIN" and I'm a little sad now that there's no way whatever actual adaptation of Kyu Hasbro may bring us could actually give us Billy in that role.


End file.
